All Too Well
by Jill122198
Summary: Aria said goodbye to rosewood two years ago and never looked back. But when she decides to return home for the holidays, she's faced with the past memories and people she never thought she'd see again.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N Hello! So I've been missing ezria a lot lately and the holidays are coming up so that's pretty much where this idea came from! Obviously, I'm obsessed with T-Swift's album so that's where the title came from lol. Also, if you follow I Almost Do, it will be updating Friday/Saturday! Enjoy!**

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"Mom, yes, I'm fine," Aria assured her mother as she stood at the gates of the airport, "Yes...I love you too...I'll see you in a few hours." Pressing the button to end the call, Aria heaved a sigh of relief. Her mother was worried about her flying in the snow, and wouldn't let Aria hang up the phone until she had told her mother she was fine about 100 times. As much as she got frustrated with her mom, Aria was happy to be coming back home for the holidays. It had been two years since she had left Rosewood and began college at Columbia university and she neglected a visit since. There were a lot of memories there that Aria still wasn't ready to re-open.

She found her seat on the plane and was happy to find it was a window seat. As Aria waited for the plane ride to begin, she took out a torn and tattered copy of her favorite book. _To Kill A Mockingbird_. After a few minutes, she watched a blond haired boy take a seat next to her, and nonchalantly looked Aria over. Aria didn't look up from her book as he sat down next to her and took a peak at the book she was reading.

"To Kill A Mockingbird?" He asked, catching her attention. Her eyebrows knitted together, as they did whenever she was frustrated with someone. Usually, she wasn't this hostile but she needed all her thoughts to be clear before returning to her hometown.

"Yes, it's one of my favorites," She breathed out and then realized how annoyed she sounded. Aria glanced over at the boy and gave him a shy smile, "It has a special place in my heart, I guess." It was true. Even if she refused to reopen the wounds Rosewood had left her with, she would always remember the year she would sit in the back of a classroom listening to a silky smooth voice discuss the book. In fact, she had many good memories in that classroom. But it had also been where it all came to a tragic end.

"Yeah, I read it in high school," the boy told her, and Aria was beginning to become more and more frustrated with his presence, "It was okay." Aria nodded her head, and was pleased when she found that the end of the conversation. She turned back to her book, not paying much attention to the words, but rather the memories they brought her.

* * *

Ezra sat at his desk, a pounding headache effecting his ability to think. It was the last day before he got his holiday break and all he had to get done was grade a few papers. It seemed like it would be an easy task but he was beginning to prove his earlier thoughts wrong. Most people loved the holidays, and in the past Ezra Fitz had been one of those people. But the past two years had changed him. He found himself alone for the most part which only made things worse. For a while, he and his roommate, Hardy, would spend Christmas eve drinking beer in their apartment and getting as drunk as possible in order to erase the past. But three months ago, Hardy had proposed to his long term girlfriend, Spencer Hastings, and had since moved in with her. It left Ezra all alone on the night that was meant to be spent with loved ones.

Deciding he could finish these few papers in the morning and drop them off with the dean, Ezra began to pack up his things from his desk. His copy of _To Kill A Mockingbird _fell to the floor with a thud and Ezra cussed under his breath. Something so simple yet it pissed him off. That was the way most things worked nowadays. His thoughts were broken when he saw an incoming call lighting up his phone screen.

"Hello?" Ezra said, annoyance clouding his voice. There was a chuckle on the other end and Ezra knew immediately, it belonged to Hardy.

"Did you hear who's coming home for the holidays?"

* * *

Aria was greatly relieved when she heard the attendents voice tell them they would be landing soon. The whole ride, the boy next to her had tried to make small talk. It was wasted for Aria was in no mood to talk. They began to land and Aria closed her eyes to enjoy the last short minutes of the ride. The last few minutes before she was forced to reopen the past.

20 minutes later, Aria was waiting outside the airport waiting quietly for her father to pick her up. She smiled fondly to herself when she watched the familiar black Sudan pull to the cub and her father step out to help with her bags. Her father pulled her into a warm hug and in that moment she was glad to be back in Rosewood. They both climbed back into the warm car and Byron began to bombard Aria with questions about college. She answered them happily and was glad that he didn't ask her questions of why she hadn't come home sooner. Aria was far too embarrassed to tell him the real reason.

After an hour drive from Philly, Byron pulled into the Montgomery house and began to unload Aria's bags from the trunk. Aria took a minute to take in the Rosewood scenery that she had missed so much. Everything looked basically the same; the houses were all in neat rows and the trees were all trimmed perfectly. If there was one thing about Rosewood, it was that the town looked spotless almost all the time. Secretly, Aria missed it as opposed to her new New York lifestyle. It was home, and there was no way around that. The moment she entered her old house, her mother was wrapping her in a huge hug and Mike was patting her on the back. Yes, it was good to be back.

Aria spent the rest of the day unpacking and she was happy when Mike offered to help her. As they unpacked, Mike was graciously telling her all the gossip she had missed. He told her how Spencer was engaged, how Hanna and Wren had gotten together and broken up many times over the past few months, and how Emily was happily single. She was glad to hear that Spencer was happy now, as she had taken the news of Toby very hard. That was another reason Aria hadn't liked the thought of revisiting Rosewood. Mike and Aria chatted for hours about the town gossip and people but something felt wrong. It felt as though he was leaving something out. She knew exactly what -or who- it was but just couldn't bring herself to ask. She really shouldn't have been interested anymore in the first place.

"Aria, Mike, dinner!" Ella called up to them and thoughts from her childhood came rushing back at Aria. Then a thought of one of the very last dinners she had in this house hit her and burned her like a scalding pan. She had resented that day for a long time. Mike, Byron, and Aria all took their designated places at the dinner table and smiled at the fact that everything felt like the good old days. They chatted away for hours and Aria was playing a game with herself to see who would be the first one to slip and say the name she'd been dying to hear. It was her father.

"In the meeting we had the other day, Ezra started..."He saw the look on his family's face and immediately stopped. He turned to Aria, "Oh honey, I'm so sorry I didn't mean to-" She cut him off.

"It's fine dad. He works with you. I'm here now, there's no way I can avoid it any longer," Aria breathed out and felt her mother take her hand. There was a dull ache in her head that began to throb louder and louder as she thought of Ezra. She missed him. But she really shouldn't have seeing that they were practically less than strangers now. Aria was a grown up, she should be able to hear an old lover's name without feeling this ache in her chest. She politely excused herself from the dinner table, praying that the pain would go away.

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**Let me know what you think and review! :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N Hey guys! Thanks for the awesome feedback on the first chapter! Since this story is set around the holiday season, it seemed appropriate to update on Thanksgiving. So Happy Thanksgiving guys! Here you go,**

**I don't own PLL or Ezria**

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Ezra stared blankly at the walls of his apartment until he heard a knock on his door. He didn't want to answer; he wanted to be alone. Aria was home for the holidays and what he needed most was to drown his sorrows in a bottle of scotch.

"Ezra open the damn door," Hardy's voice screeched on the other side. Reluctantly, Ezra stood from the couch and flinged the door open for Hardy, not even bothering to greet him. His friend went to fridge and put the beer he had brought in it. There was a silence that filled the air and Hardy shifted uncomfortably in the chair across from his friend, "Are we gonna talk about how you've only been home for 30 minutes and you've already finished half a bottle of scotch? I'm impressed, I just want to make sure there's some left for me."

Ezra didn't answer but merely nodded in the direction of the alcohol even though he knew Hardy was joking. He was barely aware of what was going on around him and just kept seeing flashes of Aria's face in his mind. For two years she had left him without a word, and the separation was hard for him but at least it wasn't like this. Right now, he felt that she was painfully close to him and yet knew that she wouldn't plan to call or visit while in Rosewood. He hated her. He hated the way that she kept him awake most nights, cursing out her name and wishing for the memories of their love to fade away. One small mistake and everything had disappeared out of his grasp.

Presently, Ezra was aware of fingers snapping in his face and Hardy looking worried. He was trying to talk to Ezra, trying to cheer him up. It wasn't working though.

"C'mon man, she's just a girl." Hardy stated shrugging his shoulders. "You can find a girl 10 times hotter than her at a bar or something.

"She's not just a girl Hardy!" Ezra exclaimed, feeling something since the first time since he'd heard the news. Anger, "She was the love of my life and she was ripped away from me! Now she's back and wouldn't even bother to give me the time of day. All I want is to see her face one last time. The worst part is it's all my fault," Ezra took a swift drink of the scotch, thinking back to the last time he had seen the face.

* * *

_The air was brisk and chilly for a summer day. Usually the summers in Rosewood were warm but today was an exception. Ezra thought of it as sort of ironic that it was rainy and wet the day she was leaving. He and Aria loved the cold weather. The way the streets sparkled with the tiny droplets of water. Not to mention, some of the fun the had in the rain. But today wasn't going to be fun, it was just the opposite. This time the rain brought something gloomy to them._

_He watched her step out of the car, bags in hand and wished that he could ravish and kiss her in the rain just for old times sake. He couldn't though. Aria didn't know he was there and Ezra couldn't bring himself to walk over to her. Byron stepped out of the passenger seat and took one of her bags as they walked to the front of the airport. For a few minutes they talked and finally Aria leaned in to hug her dad and say a final goodbye._

_ Something clicked i__n Ezra's mind that this was the last time he would see her and his heart began to ache. How had they gotten to this place? One small fight turned into miscommunication and now they hadn't spoken for two weeks._

_Right before she was about to walk into the airport, Ezra saw Aria turn around. She wasn't looking at Byron though. Ezra wan't quite sure what exactly she _was _looking at. Aria just seemed to be staring at the trees, maybe taking in the scenery for one last time. But then, she saw him. Her eyes caught his even though they were far from each __other. Aria gave him a sad smile and turned around to leave for good. To leave without a formal goodbye. Or any goodbye at all._

* * *

It had been an hour since the family dinner-turned-disaster and Aria was just beginning to stop the tears from crying. She was glad to admit this was the first time in a few months that she had cried this hard over Ezra. In the first few months it had been bad. Every night, Aria could be heard crying herself to sleep thinking about how everything was ruined and how she would never get the love they'd had back.

Aria knew her dad felt about the comment at dinner and it wasn't his fault that she felt this way still, so she didn't blame him. Maybe she should have blamed Ezra for her heartache but she couldn't bring herself to do that. She still loved him. So, Aria blamed herself instead. It was a little crazy to still be in love with someone you hadn't seen in over two years but there was just something about Ezra that still had her whipped. After a while, the tears stopped completely and Aria drifted off to sweet sleep.

When Aria awoke she rubbed her weary eyes and thought back to a specific one of her dreams. Could she even call it a dream? It had felt more like a memory than anything. Aria stopped trying to remember for a second and then it hit her. It hadn't been a dream at all but a memory all together.

The memory of their last and biggest fight.

* * *

_Ezra woke up to small rustling beside him and turned over to see Aria beginning to wake up. He sighed contently and pressed a smile kiss to her cheek. These were the mornings he loved, waking up beside the love his life and cuddling sleepily until the clock told them it was the afternoon. _

_"Good morning beautiful," He whispered sweetly into her ear, watching as a smile spread across her face. Oh, how Ezra loved that gorgeous smile. Aria leaned over and planted a sleepy kiss to his lips. "I have to tell you something, love." _

_Aria waited a second and watch Ezra's face contort between what seemed a million emotions. It gave her an uneasy feeling in her stomach. _

_"Ezra, what is it? You know you can tell me anything," He took another deep breath before unleashing it all onto his girlfriend._

_"You know how I've been busy this week?" She nodded. Ezra had been gone for the most part during the days and not coming home until late at night. Aria didn't mind, she just missed him during the day, "Well I've been going to court, trying to get custody of Malcom." Aria stared bewildered at him. How could he do something like this without telling her? Why would he keep this from her? Now he wanted to raise a kid that had someone other than her as the mother?  
_

_"Why would you do something like that? You want someone else's child more than you want one of our own?" Aria could feel the tears welling up in her eyes already._

_"What?" Ezra stared at her confusedly, "I-I didn't say that. He's my son, Aria, you don't think that I might want to spend time with him?" Aria jumped out of the bed, getting angrier by the minute. _

_"Only two months ago you didn't care about Maggie or Malcom at all and now they seem to be taking over your life!" Aria was raising her voice higher and higher now. "Obviously you've already decided what's more important in your life. And it's not me." _


End file.
